Costa Rica Elopement // Kendall and Mark

One of the sweetest elopements I’ve shot so far – from the “how we met” story to the beautifully designed details by Mal Pais Green Weddings – and y’all, Mother Nature was not messing around on this day. The sunset was like a painting!!

I’ll let Kendall explain in her own words how her and Mark met and ultimately fell in love –

“We have a crazy long story actually. We met back in July 2012, just before Mark began working at Irene Neuwirth Jewelry. I had been an employee there for a little over a year before Mark started. We immediately became close friends while working together. For the first few months it was mostly just talking in the office and eating lunch together, sending funny emails back and forth, but almost a year later we finally decided to go hang out together outside of work. We decided to grab “a” drink after work one Friday night, and it then turned into about 5 drinks. Although it was just platonic and we were there as friends, it was by far the best first date I’ve ever been on. After that we were inseparable (still just as friends). We hung out all the time. Friends, family and Co-workers all thought something was going on, but we were just friends. Years went on and we kept getting closer and hanging out constantly. Mark ended up moving into an apartment near mine in Santa Monica, and we would carpool to work and hang out every weekend. We were basically a couple but never crossed the lines of friendship. After about 3 1/2 years of this I couldn’t take working with him anymore and also needed a new step in my career, I quit and got a new job. Hoping my absence would make him finally step up and make a move, but nothing changed. If anything we just text more, spoke on the phone more frequently and for longer and hung out more often. About 4 months after quitting I decided to come clean and admit my (obvious) feelings for him. I sent him an email the day after Christmas telling him how I felt and asking if he felt the same. The next day Mark replied saying he cared deeply for me, but that we were only friends and he didn’t want to cross that line. I of course was absolutely devastated and told him I understood, but didn’t want anything to do with him and wished him well. One month later after losing a friend of mine who took her own life and hearing through a mutual friend of ours that his fathers health wasn’t doing well and was about to get surgery. Although I was heartbroken I wanted to talk to him to have closure and give us a proper goodbye. We had been best friends for over 3 years and it all ended over email. So I text him and asked to get a drink and talk. He clearly missed me too cause he responded immediately and was so excited to hear from me. Like, REALLY EXCITED! Mark suggested we get dinner instead and picked a pretty swanky place. We met and it was awkward yet comfortable. Mark told me he missed me so much and was so sad without me, but still said he didn’t want our relationship to change and wanted to stay friends. I told him I just couldn’t do that and it was too painful for me and we deserve to date people and be happy and get out of our weird pseudo-relationship. I said goodbye and went home and cried myself to sleep. The next morning, just after my alarm went off I received a call from him. Mark said he was up all night and couldn’t sleep. He said that he couldn’t live without me, that he loved me and that I was right. We should be together. 2 days later he came over for our “first official date” and we have been together ever since. We’ve been together for 2 1/2 years and were engaged November 25, 2017.”